A journey by train with a nod to Annie Brassey

Tag Archives: train

I set out my objects from St Petersburg again and sift through paraphernalia bought back from my time in Hong Kong. A train ticket from Shanghai to Jui Long, a brochure from the aviary. I recall the soft horizon and pink skies. The view from the top of The Peak across the city below and the islands beyond. The vast maze of shopping centres and well dressed locals. Clearly defined from China, this identity is emphasised with signs that forbid spitting and give instruction on how to use a Western toilet. It is a curious place between West and East, between time spent in China and Vietnam.

Re reading Annie’s journal entries my memory is jogged, we went to the races at Happy Valley, I caught up with an old school friend and had my first conversation for three weeks. China was challenging. I focus on associations with Bexhill. Henry Young, a founder of Bexhill Museum, made a statue of Queen Victoria at his Pimlico foundry. I smile as I learn more about Victoria’s journey to Hong Kong and recall my journey looking for her.

Having recently celebrated Chinese New Year I take fortune cookies in to the museum and we celebrate the year of the sheep’s arrival. A photo of Peter the sheep is added to the wall, football mascot during World War I.

Coins are found from the archives, mine are prettier, Hong Kong dollars now sporting more elaborate scalloped edges. Also from the archives some very small Chinese shoes. Probably a model rather than anything actually worn. There is a discussion about foot binding when the children’s workshop comes to visit. They concentrate well and enjoy their afternoon at the museum.

Chinese shoes, Bexhill Museum (Louise Kenward, 2015)

Chinese shoes, Bexhill Museum (Louise Kenward, 2015)

Of Annie’s journal entries I am particularly drawn to the following comments on life in Hong Kong (Victoria) and the treatment of girls and boys:

“Off the town of Victoria the crowd of shipping is immense, and it became a difficult task to thread our way between the fleets of sampans and junks…The sampans are long boats, pointed at both ends, and provided with a small awning…In these sampans whole families, sometimes five generations, live and move and have their being. I never shall forget my astonishment when, going ashore very early one morning in one of these strange craft, the proprietor lifted up what I had thought was the bottom of the boat, and disclosed three or four children, packed away as tightly as herrings, while under the seats were half-a dozen people of larger growth. The young mother of the small family generally rows with the smallest baby strapped on to her back, and the next-sized one in her arms, whom she is also teaching to row. The children begin to row by themselves when they are about two years old. The boys have a gourd, intended for a life-preserver, tied round their necks as soon as they are born. The girls are left to their fate, a Chinaman thinking it rather an advantage to lose a daughter or two occasionally.” Annie Brassey from A Voyage in the Sunbeam, 1879.

I spare the young visitors this information and hope that changes to Hong Kong extend beyond architecture and prolific use of concrete. There is much more to Hong Kong than there was in 1879, and a great deal more of it too. Much has been reclaimed from the sea. Victoria harbour remains, but no longer with that name and it is now a further away from China than it was 136 years ago.

I spend my day adding to the mind map on the wall, continuing my journey from Russia. Quotes from Annie are added and I start to draw. The shoes captivate me. Attempts at photographs do not do them justice. I am compelled to draw, to explore them further. Simple line drawings of pattern of embroidery is soothing and early attempts to create shape and form are more successful than later ones. I want to use colour but find pastels clumsy and heavy. I make a note to bring watercolour pencils next time.

A speedy placement of a pebble on my ‘trail of breadcrumbs’ was made in Java. Another train station, but quite a busy one, so there was no hanging about deliberating over where it was best left. Hence little time to document its new home and some hurriedly taken photos.

“8am local time (somewhere between Moscow and Beijing), 6am Moscow time – the train will remain on Moscow time until we reach Beijing. This initially entertains me but is becoming increasingly confusing. I adjust my watch accordingly so as to ease myself in to changing time zones, and to arrive in China at a reasonable time of day. It makes for more complicated station stops though, assuming the train is running to schedule.

I’ve just realised the last entry was probably yesterday, so Tuesday not Monday, or Wednesday, possibly.

Early morning calm and more trees are yellowing or have lost their covering for the winter. A soft pink/peach filled the sky earlier but now it is a purple grey with smatterings of blue and white. The stark trees continue to line the tracks. The ‘bathroom’ is becoming increasingly fragrant. Ingenuity through necessity I’ve had a warm wash from the boiler this morning, taking great care not to drop anything on the floor.

The attendant has returned the creased, yellowed, slightly stiff netting to the lower parts of the windows, serving neither function or aesthetic. It is removed again as soon as she is out of sight, folded unceremoniously and stuffed through the elastic cord suspending it, so we can watch the travelling landscape.

The gentle swaying of the train and the noise as everything moves with it is vaguely calming. The temperature reads 27ºC above the door at the end of the corridor – it is very hot, we are not allowed to open the windows. We’ve tried, they are quickly closed again. Communication in this respect is clear and facial gestures and hand signals indicate that window opening is not approved of. I don’t know why. Perhaps to add to our discomfort. It feels punishing rather than comforting. Two more time changes are passed through and my watch is duly altered. I think that makes five, or six, and another night is spent on a train. I’ve relinquished myself to the journey and its time frame. The one thing that is certain is that the train will ultimately arrive in China. Everything else is frivolous detail.
For the wilderness, there is great activity on the railway. Lines are busy, long freight trains take forever to pass, blocking light for many minutes at a time.”

The first pebble was more of a stone than a pebble. I’m not certain what the difference is, but train line stone chippings were the best available, and suited the purpose well enough. It became apparent that this was likely to be a common situation. Travelling by train so much, without access to beaches, railway chippings work just as well. They aren’t smooth, or as nice to handle granted, but the size is right, they are readily available, and they are directly connected to the journey.

This was my first. The stone was collected at Omsk station (Siberia) during a stop on the Trans Siberian line. It is a careful choice, trying to find the most even, rounded piece, of ‘suitable’ size. Like Goldilocks, it could be neither too small nor too big. Clambering across the tracks was a common enough practice here so I had a decent chance to find ‘the right’ one. It is a big station, there are a number of tracks and platforms, babushka’s selling things made of cabbage and potato, bundled in many layers of clothing. Passengers from the train get off to stretch their legs or smoke a cigarette. Guards stand at carriage entrances wearing heavy navy woollen uniforms with smart hats and stern faces. Station attendants check things and pace the platform purposefully.

I boarded the train as it prepared to move on. I made a cup of tea and settled in to the next part of the journey. My tea went cold, and by the time we arrived at Barabinsk my first stone was ready.

Barabinsk, Siberia – ‘trail of breadcrumbs’ (Louise Kenward, 2013)

Barabinsk, Siberia – ‘Trail of Breadcrumbs’ (Louise Kenward, 2013)

As much care and consideration was taken as I could afford on the placement of this stone. The stop was not very long and I was not keen on getting left behind. It is another two or three days before the next train to Irkutsk. Shortly after the stone was placed, another train came into the station, rolling along the track above it. My stone was safely under the train and a part of its surroundings, it’s journey had begun.

Stones, pebbles, rock. Universal objects and materials. Multitudes of uses, meanings and metaphor. A pebble beach, Bexhill coastline is filled with all shapes, sizes and colours of stones, with varied patterns, striations and markings. Collecting pebbles, skimming stones, picking them up and putting them down again, universal activities for so many beach visitors. The satisfying crunching sound they make under foot, albeit unstable, is one of the noises synonymous with time at the seafront. That and the inevitable caw of the seagulls cutting through the wild, calm and ever moving sea. I have tried to take sound footage of the seafront, trying to capture the atmosphere. Sounds are so evocative. The beating of the masts on the sailing boats. The sound of the sea whether crashing waves with frothy white tops of spray or barely there shoreline kisses and caresses, it is a constant. A reminder that the sea is a truly powerful beast, it holds me with such a strong connection. It is soothing, energising, frightening, exciting. It puts things in perspective. It is also at risk, our oceans are under enormous pressure. Something I will come back to, but for now my focus is the pebble. The humble, brown, blue, round, pebble.

Pebble collection, Louise Kenward (2014)

My intention for my journey was to make connections, make links. It was to see what unifies us and the things we share around the globe, irrespective of culture, creed, race or language. I have a small collection of stones and pebbles from times in my life and places I have been. I don’t remember the story of them all, and for that I am sad, but they are all important to me. So to collect pebbles along my route was an obvious intention. Travelling ‘light’ the idea of collecting stones in this way was was not very practical. I have picked up my back pack more than once to exclaim ‘what’s in this, rocks?’ only for it to gradually dawn on me that yes, there are certainly a number of stones in it. I have been careful of what I have collected, conscious of what a minefield collecting anything from the beach is in many places. So I hope, I have certainly tried, to be as conscious and aware of this all the time. What I have actually brought back is very little, but each object has been carefully labelled and stored, waiting to be sorted and accompanying stories told.

In addition, I learned to crochet last summer. I wanted to make something along the way. Crochet was an appealing medium. It was a new skill, it was portable, I could make a blanket en route to keep me warm in Canada. The practicality of this was short lived and my task was to find something that would be manageable. My friend bought me a gift from a charity shop and my project was formed…

from Nicole

A trail of breadcrumbs as I have since referred to it, is a trail of pebbles I have found and collected on the way between places called Bexhill and beyond. Crocheting a cover for each one was sufficient ‘intervention’ after which I would replace the now covered pebble where I found it, or would leave it at the next place I arrived. Or an alternative suitable spot. It became a challenge to find the ‘right’ place to leave each one. This became as important as selecting the pebble and making the crochet for it. A very ‘female’ act it felt a surprisingly rebellious thing to do. Crochet is an activity for firesides surely, I have an incredible woman in my family who I have fond memories of in association with crochet. The influence of women on this trip cannot go without comment. Annie (Brassey) is obviously a huge influence, who may or may not have crocheted (it was then considered a ‘poorer’ version of lace making from cursory research). Kate Marsden, another incredible woman from Bexhill. I tried to find trace of Kate through Siberia in her quest for a cure for leprosy but without success. She remains present in her connection with the museum and her adventures. And thus it seemed fitting to use an unapologetic ‘female’ ‘craft’ in my interventions around the world. Two words that can often draw negative connotations in themselves.

So, I launched on my quest from Bexhill (itself a place where crochet is not out of place). A town often known for it’s older population and being slightly old fashioned in many respects, this is one of the reasons I have such affection for the place. Armed with crochet hook and yarn and a book of patterns to follow I headed off to crochet my way around the world. The first week or so was a bit of a whirl of train timetables and deadlines, with little time for dawdling or pondering. Until I reached the Trans Mongolian Train. Here I had five days to do little else but ponder and dawdle, interrupted only by the routine of making tea and noodles, watching for wisps of smoke from the houses in the distance, and an occasional game of ‘Dobble’. Train travel is perfect for pondering, wandering and crochet.

To start with it felt a little clumsy, finding a way of introducing my new found friends and companions to my crochet exploits. I was a little sheepish, it took a while to get used to. It draws attention. Crochet is indeed an act of rebellion, perhaps. My later meeting with the Knitting Nanas was wonderful, a truly incredible bunch of ladies doing wonderful work while also making fabulous woollen items.

And so, the first place we stopped, where I had enough confidence to get off the train and know it would not leave without me, was Omsk. Here I collected my first stone, from the railway tracks…

In a development from my ‘trail of breadcrumbs’ (collecting, making and placing crochet pebbles along my journey), I made a piece in response to an arts group call out from TarpSpace. TarpSpace are an artists run initiative based in Adelaide, some of the artists from which spent much of last year on a road trip around Australia in ‘Henry’s Mobile Studio‘. It was this project I had hoped to have the chance to collaborate with. With dates of my trip not quite matching up with theirs, however, it was a shame not to have been a part of the HMS. Despite that, as an extension of the project (mine and theirs) I was commissioned to make a piece once I arrived in Bexhill, New South Wales. I was also very well looked after in Adelaide by the tarpy crew (arriving just in time to enjoy the fringe as well as Grid Festival) and had the great pleasure to meet Jessie, Jock and Brad.

TarpSpace “aim to work outside of the constraints of traditional gallery spaces. Rather than having the artist fit the work to the space, we want to fit the space to the project. The only consistent factor is the use of a large blue tarpaulin – other than that, how the project develops and where it happens is entirely up to the artist involved…pushing the boundaries of what and where an art space can be.” Jessie Lumb. This worked really well with my own model of practice, often working in public spaces.

Once I arrived in Bexhill, my time was initially spent seeing as much of the area and talking to as many people as I could. While planning for this part of my trip I had anticipated making some work in connection to the train tracks which run through the village, the Open Air Cathedral and/or the disused brickworks, famed for their incredible blue waters. The train tracks and the brickworks won my greatest attention, drawn to things disused and abandoned.

I collected some stones from the train tracks. Along with a pebble from Tasmania that I had collected the previous week, I placed several crochet pebbles/stones on the railway tracks (also long abandoned). I spent time walking along the tracks, imagining what it would have been like when the trains were running. The presence/absence of a train service altering the community considerably.

Then, armed with a shiny new sheet of bright blue tarpaulin, not entirely dissimilar to the shade of water at the brickworks, I set about making a crochet pebble with it. Sited at the brickworks I found a lump of brick suited to the task. I needed to make a larger scale version of the previous ones in order for it to work. The tarp strips needed to be thin enough to crochet but wide enough not to split. This was a trial and error that took me much of my travels along the Queensland coastline to establish a working model. On my return to Bexhill a few weeks later I completed my task and placed the brick back at the brickworks, now covered in blue tarpaulin crochet. A frame was made from the edging of the tarpaulin sheeting, suspended at the boundary of the water. Liz, whom I stayed with, was an able and willing supporter, took photographs documenting the installation and placement of said brick. It, along with my other pebbles and stones have been placed and left. Liz said she would visit to see what happens to it.